Cowbelly Pet Photography Seattle Blog

I’ve been meaning to post this for weeks, but I’ve been extremely busy with current clients, upcoming clients, studio stuff and planning for the NYC + Seattle workshops. This is a follow up to my post on my PayPal saga.

On the first day of my ocean trip with the Fergs, I had to drive down to Ocean Shores and do some work on my laptop in my car (a little issue with a client’s order). While on my laptop, waiting for an email reply from a vendor, I decided to check the status of my paypal account.

I logged on, and instantly noticed I had several thousand more dollars available than the last time I looked. Yet the odd thing was I hadn’t received any payments. Hmmm….

So I clicked on ‘check your reserves’ and saw this:

“Whaaaa?” I thought. “How did that happen?”. In a very good way of course.

I was so happy I cried. Literally cried, real tears, right there in the parking lot of the Shilo Inn in Ocean Shores. And then of course, instantly transferred ALL of my funds to my bank account, lol.

I never received any notification of this change from PayPal, either written or by phone, and could only wonder why they decided arbitrarily to lift the holds and reserves and release my funds, months before they had planned to.

I had grand visions in my head of my last blog post being so influential that it got to the top, and instead of deciding to mess with me, they just lifted the holds. I thought because that post went viral on twitter with 51 tweets, and had 89 people give it the thumbs up through their facebook pages, that it was enough to get them to stop their bad behavior.

But the mystery was solved last week when I received an ominous looking letter in the mail.

I won’t show it to you guys here, because I suspect that may be against Washington State laws, but the letter is from the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, and it says essentially this:

RE: Complaint #1234

Dear complaintant:

Our department has reviewed your complaint and contacted PayPal about the issue. We have directed them to respond to our department about this matter.

After we receive a response from PayPal and determine if any violations have taken place, we’ll decide whether to take any corrective actions against them. You’ll receive a copy of our findings. The status of your complaint is pending. Legal jargon, legal jargon.

Sincerely,

Complaint Team Representative

I see said the wise woman. That’s why they decided to lift the holds and reverse the reserves to 0% for 0 days.

Now, here is my burning question, directed at YOU PayPal.

If, as your spokeswoman Amanda Pires says, the reserves and holds are: “perfectly legal”…..

….. Then WHY, ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH, WOULD A LETTER FROM THE WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS CAUSE YOU TO LIFT YOUR HOLDS??!!

If your policies are legal, and not breaking any state or other laws, then your response to being contacted by the Department of Financial Institutions would be: NOTHING.

……………..

……….

….. crickets…….

I don’t know about you guys, but this seals the deal on their guilt to me.

To those of you still dealing with this issue, the process of contacting the Department of Financial Institutions or Secretary of State in your state works! It certainly can’t hurt to try, especially if, like me, you have thousands of dollars of your hard-earned money tied up in their accounts.

If, when you feel you are wronged by a company, you take action to defend yourself against them, good things *can* happen, like they did to me here. Nobody should ever have to take being treated badly. We are only victims if we choose to be.

Sadly now I’m no longer a candidate to participate in the class action lawsuit, but I’m sure they know that and that’s one of the reasons why they decided it would just be quicker and easier to give me my money back.

All I can say is, thank god that’s over. Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes, I’ll still be getting a new merchant account.